Thursday, December 12, 2013

I feel like I've seen the phrase "liberty movement" crop up a lot lately - more than usual. I'm a little puzzled by the uptick, although maybe I'm just imagining it.

In any case, it's certainly not used as often as simply talking about "libertarianism", and I had always assumed the reason it wasn't used as often is because of the way it sounds to me (and by extension, all reasonable people of any political persuasion).

Whenever I hear "liberty movement" used as a synonym for "libertarian" it strikes me as either naïve/ignorant or deliberately distortive and opportunistic.

I always felt like this sense of the phrase was confirmed by the fact that you largely heard it in the context of Libertarian Party political events, Ron Paul stuff, etc.

So my question is - what do libertarians think of the phrase "liberty movement" as a synonym for libertarian? Do you sort of have my impressions (which is what I've always assumed because most of you don't use it all that much), or am I completely off base and you too think this is a good synonym.

I should add this isn't like my concern with the use of the word "classical liberal" to mean "libertarian". Whatever my disagreements with that usage, "classical liberal" is simply terminology and what's at stake to a large extent is dueling claims to a historical and intellectual pedigree. But "liberty movement" isn't just terminology. It's not just a label, in other words - it pretty clearly means "this is the group of people that like liberty" as a way of distinguishing that group from other groups.

50 comments:

"Libertarian" has a bad connotation among many on the right. There's no substance. It's just that conservative academics get really tangled up with definitions of words. Depending on who it is we're talking about, they may conflate it with Rothbardianism, libertinism, or left-civil libertarianism.

I believe "liberty movement" was invented to get around the issue. It appears most often in Republican-sponsored events.

The reason I consider myself a libertarian is because of the nature of politics. I view politics as a game of petty BS (ex. debt ceiling talks). Look at what politicians and bureaucrats get paid to do. A politician's job is to get reelected. A bureaucrat's job is to cover his own ass. Why is it a good idea to give power to these people? We all know how complicated economics is. How can we expect politicians and bureaucrats to make good, long-term economic decisions about this stuff.

That's a silly statement. Office politics affects all jobs, public and private. If you're not covering your ass in any job, you will find yourself taking the blame for things that are beyond your control. The reason government bureaucrats seem to have a higher degree of CYA practices is because the internal workings of public groups are more open than private groups.

Benjamin Hord, thank you for making this thread much more interesting.

I agree that there is office politics and defensive behaviour in all organizations. A lot of people criticise government, saying that things are worse there. I've met a few people who work in the UK NHS who would agree with that too. We read about this kind of thing all the time in the media too. In the Mid-Staffordshire NHS trust scandal, for example.

I think that there are reasons behind this. To begin with, competition reigns in this behaviour. If a business is overtaken by internal politics then it will suffer compared to it's competitors. State agencies generally have no competitors, so that limit doesn't apply. Also, the outputs of state organizations are often very difficult to measure, there is no clear profit+loss account. That makes criteria of success much more open to political interpretation. Lastly, in the private sector being fired by one company isn't career ending. In the state sector it sometimes is, so people must be much more conservative. An FBI agent fired from the FBI can't be re-employed by a different FBI, there only is one of them. A hospital manager fired by one part of the NHS may be re-employed by another part, but they would be very careful about that.

In my view the problem isn't any particular incompetence of the state. Rather, it's the nature of the problems the state takes on, and they way it takes them on. Measurement of the outputs of a public good, for example, can be naturally difficult. But if the good is truly public then the private sector wouldn't provide it anyway.

Current, I agree with everything you said, but you left out the biggest reason why government workers have to be especially careful to cover themselves. Say a politician or special interest group doesn't like a program and wants it shut down. The easiest way to do that is to "prove" government incompetence. So, the government organization has to be incredibly careful to make sure that all of the employees are performing the utmost diligence. Unfortunately, due diligence requires significant man hours. So you have the catch-22, do you "waste" resources on professionalism, or do you risk normal human error(incompetence)?

That's true in some cases, though not all. Some activities and programs are beyond reproach. Take the Mid-Staffordshire NHS scandal, for example, that hospital had "excess mortality" of ~1000 compared to the what would be expected of an NHS hospital of that size doing the same type of work. There are probably other hospitals like it. But, since the NHS has cross-party support it's managers need not worry too much about this. The same is true in the defence departments of many countries. It's probably true of Medicaid and Medicare in the US.

It's interesting that the inquiry in Mid-Staffordshire hospital recommended all sorts of micro-regulation, and was widely criticised for that. As you say, it comes with a huge risk of waste.

Due diligence is only considered waste by people who do not understand the quirks and problems of a given situation.

I don't know anything about the situation you brought up, and I am not inherently for or against regulations. I think regulations should be judged based on the need to solve a problem, how well the regulation solves the problem, and what problems the regulation creates.

Were the critics of the micro-regulation professional who have had to deal with similar problems, or were the critics business analysts and political commentators who have limited perspective on the issue?

The problem with government regulation and centralization is that it's really hard to get rid of mistakes. It's very difficult to get rid of government agencies that aren't doing anything good (ex. NSA). Just look at the rollout of the disaster that's been the ACA. The problem with centralized systems is that one little mistake screws everything up due to its top-down nature. All of the costs have been much higher than expected, which really didn't come as a surprise to me. I don't know anything about the NHS thing you're talking about, so I can't say anything about that. Decentralized systems are much more volatile than centralized systems, but they're also much less fragile.

How can you say decentralized systems are less fragile than centralized systems when your initial assertion is that centralized systems can't be changed? There seems to be a slight contradiction.

And seriously man, ALL initial rollouts suffer disasters. That is why most games have limited beta tests before the big rollout. And even then there are sometimes significant bugs in final rollouts. This is nothing specific to government enterprises. The success or failure of the ACA should be determined by how quickly they fix the bugs that will inevitably happen and how the ACA actually addresses the problems that it is meant to address.

Although in all fairness, I am not for centralization if the infrastructures are not in place to support it.

I agree with you about things like due diligence and internal regulations. It's a problem all organizations suffer from to some extent.

The report complaining about the changes proposed after Mid-Staffs was by some academics at Oxford University. Curiously they have taken down the piece from their website ;) . Mike Farrar, the head of the NHS confederation (an organization that represents organizations within the NHS) also complained about this, he acknowledges the trade-offs though.

I would not necessarily trust "professionals who have had to deal with similar problems" over "business analysts" there are situations where both have an axe to grind.

Another issue is competition, as Current points out. In the private sector, if you don't make money, you're out. Whether it's good or bad is another issue, but there is skin in the game. In the public sector, skin in the game is nonexistent as the bureaucrat doesn't pay for his mistakes--this is also true for some corporate executives, but not all. The biggest issue is that you can't get rid of something once it's been put in place. It's like getting on a highway with no exits. If something goes wrong, you're just stuck. Centralized government and centralized decision making should be avoided in general. The problem is that one mistake blows up the entire system and mistakes will happen eventually. Basically, it's not very robust. Government agencies can also become self-sustaining after a while even if the provide no increase in productive capacity (ex. military-industrial complex).

"How can you say decentralized systems are less fragile than centralized systems when your initial assertion is that centralized systems can't be changed? There seems to be a slight contradiction."

How is that a contradiction? If you can't change or get rid of something, it becomes a drag. It's like getting stuck on a highway with no exits. The problem with centralization is their structure: they become top-down and bureaucratic. One small mistake blows up the entire system. With decentralized systems, one small part can go down and everything is okay. The problem with government supervision is the we're dependent on people in power making the correct decisions, which is a big if. Just look at how complicated economics can be; it's a very technical field that has a lot of power. Do we really want politicians making decisions about it? That seems like a disaster waiting to happen. I think it's a virtual guarantee that central planning is gonna blow something up. All you need is time.

By the way, I was expecting the rollout of the ACA to be as bad as it has been. I think it gets repealed. It's been a disaster so far and nothing good has come out of it. Something is gonna go horribly wrong with it on top of what's gone wrong as it is. Just give it time. The costs are way, way higher than forecasted by the way, which is another issue with governments. They always rely on forecasting the future when no one in charge knows what the future holds. There's a fundamental uncertainty problem and bureaucrats usually don't make best decision making under uncertainty. Bureaucrats usually just take the kick the can down the road and let someone else fix it approach.

"Fragile" means that something is easily broken, if it can't be changed, by definition it is not fragile. Your second argument makes more sense.

You talk about the dangers of central planning and historically you are probably right. Most great civilizations that fell, did so because they suffered from central planners who were too removed from situations to make appropriate decisions or to ensure those decisions were properly executed.

But the flip side of that is, no civilization has ever become great without some kind of centralized leadership. Whether you want to look at great "Barbarian" warlords or massive empires. However, the civilizations that tended to survive the longest were the ones who had some kind of bureaucracy in place to maintain day to day operations during periods of incompetent leadership.

""Fragile" means that something is easily broken, if it can't be changed, by definition it is not fragile."

Fragile means something that doesn't like volatility, disorder, or randomness. A coffee mug is very fragile, but it's also not changed. Anything that's short volatility is fragile and centralized systems are certainly short volatility. Fragile systems are actually remarkably stable due to their lack of volatility, but they are also prone to violent blow-ups. Don't confuse a lack of volatility for stability; they are two completely different things.

As for civilizations becoming great without centralized leadership, that's because of war. Nation-states are war machines and that was actually the initial purpose of government debt: to fund wars. If you have decentralized states with no centralized government, it makes nations very powerless against invaders.

Daniel this is going to come off strong but since you are accusing us of "it strikes me as either naïve/ignorant or deliberately distortive and opportunistic."

(a) I used it in my recent video because a lot of people call themselves agorist, voluntaryist, etc. They don't necessarily endorse Rothbard's political philosophy and they don't necessarily endorse the Libertarian Party.

(b) Regardless of (a), everybody in what I mean by the "liberty movement" would understand why you are not in it.

^^ That sounds harsh, it's not supposed to be. I'm talking about the label meaning something substantive. If you want more, things like: Being cool with drone strikes, Fed having power to buy any assets it wants, etc.

No, no worries. You mentioned it recently, as did Kevin (below), which was exactly why I was wondering how other people think of the term - because I don't take you to be naive/ignorant nor to I take you to be particularly opportunistic in the way that others are.

I think I agree with your (round-about) assessment that "liberty movement" doesn't add anything that "libertarianism" didn't already contain. But at least as I read it, "liberty movement" refers to an actual movement (whether real or exaggerated), where "libertarianism" refers to the general philosophic perspective that is the core of that movement.

So, I'm not sure "liberty movement" is a proper substitute for the word "libertarianism" any more than "communist movement' would be a substitute for the word "communism."

I think it's a bit more nuanced than what you are saying. Obviously, plenty of people like liberty. But different people balance liberty interests differently against other interests. People in the liberty movement would be people who would rank liberty much higher than other interests compared to other people.

But I think that's precisely how a libertarian would justify it and someone like me would balk at that explanation.

I do not think, for example, that Bob ranks liberty higher than me. I think he hates the state more than me. Those are clearly not the same thing (UNLESS you're in the liberty movement.... errr... a libertarian).

I'll just speak for myself, but I think what I'm saying has wider applicability. I think I rank liberty higher than you do given my definition of liberty. I don't think you could argue that my definition of liberty is dishonest or fundamentally flawed, even if you disagreed with it. I also define my ideology primarily by the supremacy of liberty (as I define it) as a value. Wouldn't it make sense from that point of view for me to call myself a member of the "liberty movement"?

The set of all libertarians includes a subset of people called "movement libertarians." Google that phrase and make sure you include the quotation marks in your search string so that you get the right search results. You will find references to "movement libertarians" by Matt Zwolinski and others. I believe the first time I encountered that phrase was in a Rothbard article.

"movement libertarians" = "liberty movement"

But bear in mind we are still talking about a subset of libertarians, not the full set.

Exactly! but this is what I'm balking at. Liberty movement should not equate to movement libertarians unless you're naive/ignorant or manipulative/opportunistic. This equation you have above is largely what I'm getting at.

I should have made the "movement" point more distinct and bracketed off in the post - didn't realize how significant that is for peoples' perceptions of the composition of the group. But it's definitely the "liberty" thing I'm intrigued by.

What I was getting at was that movement libertarians really are the same thing as people in the liberty movement. And, by corollary, not all libertarians are part of the liberty movement. I consider people like Eugene Fama and Scott Sumner to be libertarians who are not "movement libertarians." I consider people like Lew Rockwell and Matt Zwolinski to be "movement libertarians."

I think your point is that there is a big difference between Lew Rockwell, who I think you would say is a member of the "liberty movement," and people like Matt Zwolinski, who I think you would say is a "movement libertarian," but not a member of the "liberty movement."

If that's your point, then I can agree with your gist but would stop short of calling it naive, ignorant, manipulative, or opportunistic. I'd just call it ambiguity. If, on the other hand, I don't have your point correct, then I apologize.

Perhaps David Henderson's "activist" libertarian thing would be useful here.http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2013/07/the_chicago_sch_1.html

Right. Assume we are on the same page on the composition of this movement - the actual people that identify. I didn't focus on that in the post, but assume we are on the same page (or that I could be easily corrected).

My point is "liberty movement" is a problematic thing to call it.

I would contest either Rockwell or Zwolinski being in a movement called "liberty movement" that excludes someone that thinks like I do and is more activisty. I would call such a name for such a movement either naive/ignorant or opportunistic.

If you're involved in politics you're almost by definition going to be opportunistic in some way. Of course they're going to be. And as someone not involved in any significant sense, I'll complain about it. I have always thought of this term as being political lingo. But I've seen people recently who aren't especially political using it which piqued my interest.

It's an attempt to expropriate the word, and thus imply falsehoods about your opponents. I can care about democracy without being a Democrat, I can care about the Republic without being Republican, I can care about liberty without being either a libertarian or part of the liberty movement. The purpose of the label is to imply otherwise.

This is exactly the problem with any labels. "Liberal" is probably the most confusing one. In Europe I was considered a radical liberal, and in the US I'm considered a libertarian. However, "liberal" casts a massive umbrella over many shades of classical liberalism. "Progressive" has the same problem. What does that even mean? For me, the "liberty movement" is an empty term, and I agree that it sounds a bit arrogant. We love liberty, yes we do, we love liberty, how 'bout you? I'm very much a libertarian, but I cannot say I am a fan of the constant need in the libertarian movement to be bombastic. There's also constant jockeying to be the next Rothbard/Friedman/savior-of-the-world-bathed-in-the-tears-of-lady-liberty, which I believe is the main reason libertarianism fails to make inroads. It just breathes arrogance.

Oh right, I was focused on "liberty" but ignored the "movement" part: Daniel, there are a bunch of us who are truly devoting our lives to the preservation/expansion of individual liberty. We don't always agree on what that means. But there's a difference between someone who happens to believe that the government is too big, or that Gitmo should be closed, etc., versus someone who sponsors rallies, writes letters to the editor, and does other things that might even jeopardize his career etc.

Sure - I totally get the "movement" point. I'd just pivot and then ask "why not 'the libertarian movement'" for the same reasons - "liberty" movement sounds naive/ignorant at best and manipulative/opportunistic at worst. That distinction is my principle interest.

Well it's obvious why it's naive to think that everybody is going to agree and understand that libertarian = "people who like liberty most" I hope, right?

And given that that is naive, if one does use it in that way you're being opportunistic by trying to present your movement as being a bigger tent than it really is.

Am I missing what's confusing?

See I thought we were all on the same page on those points and that was why I usually just heard political types use the phrase. That's what I'm trying to get a handle of here - are those points really not commonly held by reasonable people (and I classify you as a reasonable person, so long as an asteroid isn't heading toward the Earth).

Obviously there are no IUCs possible, but to the extent that we operationalize "who cares more about liberty?" I don't even see how this can be close. I just scrolled through your blog and in the first 3 pages, the only mention I see you making of liberty is to mock/criticize the people who have devoted their lives to defending it. And it's not "Hey guys I strategically disagree with your wonderful aims" but rather "I think these guys are either naive or lying."

Look, I clearly don't care as much about racial bigotry as people working at the NAACP. That doesn't mean I'm a racist or that I hate black people, it just means it's clearly not as high a priority to me as to them.

By the same token, you clearly care more about economic theory and your kid than liberty. In contrast, I care about liberty, Krugman, and karaoke.

None of this is a judgment, and I'm not saying you're a closet totalitarian, but I can't believe you're acting as if you and your social network care as much about "liberty" as the people I know who do things like move their families to a different state etc. for it.

^^ And of course the above is supposed to somewhat whimsical. Duh, I care about my kid more than karaoke, but you get what I'm saying. Even your asteroid comment here is germane: When you discuss issues of liberty, it's typically to explain why people like me are all out of whack.

Here's the thing - I don't see you as devoting your life to defending liberty. That's how YOU see you. I see you as devoting your life to fighting the state. And the asteroid point is perfect, and the Civil Rights Act point I mentioned earlier which many libertarians will say they oppose, and the Lincoln suspicions. And the pacifism in the face of facism.

All of this is evidence that libertarians do not care about liberty more than I do.

As for blogging - I care about my kid tremendously more than I care about economic theory, but economic theory is what I blog about. It doesn't mean it's more important (you get at this in your follow up I see).

Plus one on Daniel's response to Bob. Bob may seriously believe that being Pro liberty implies being antistate, but claiming to be Pro liberty is an assertion about values, and being antistate is a method. It's either naïve or disingenuous to conflate the two.

Daniel, I'm a bit confused. You write: "Whenever I hear "liberty movement" used as a synonym for "libertarian" it strikes me as either naïve/ignorant or deliberately distortive and opportunistic."

It seems to me to be a simple way to categorize people involved in actual politics, as part of a "movement" in some sense. In other words, "the liberty movement" could be read as The Liberty Movement, which denotes a group of people who actively engage in politics with a certain priority given to their conception of "liberty." So as actual players in the game, "liberty" is for them almost always the salient issue. I would tend to categorize people like this as "libertarian" in some broad sense of the word. This does not mean that if you are not a "libertarian" then you do not care about liberty, just as it does not mean that if you are not an "environmentalist" then you do not care about the environment. In fact, a good parallel would be "the green movement". But I think a more general point and something to keep in mind is that if there is such as a thing as "the liberty movement" and such movement is properly characterized as "libertarian" in some way, that has nothing to do with moral-political philosophy or the correct/most justified conception of "liberty" or "freedom" or "equality" etc. Perhaps as an economist and someone so close to the politics of it all, this is a hard distinction to keep in mind: philosophical libertarianism and political "libertarianism". I believe, however, that it is an important distinction to keep in mind. What is interesting is that philosophical libertarianism does not necessarily entail the advocacy of policies that one would normally consider "libertarian" in the policy space of actual politics. This is because there are very difficult, complex questions related to connecting the ideal aspect of one's political philosophy with its nonideal institutional recommendations for a particular political unit at a particular instance in time.

I'm a little confused by your confusion. Clearly the concern isn't a denotative one, not is the concern that the chosen name is baffling. The concern is that people take it to be connotative in a way that I find either naive or opportunistic.

This is not like a Republican complaining to a Democrat about what they're called because he too supports democratic principles. This is a case (at least in my reckoning) of a Democrat suggesting that those who care about democracy are Democrats and that that is the whole point of the group.

Just take a look at some of Bob's comments - he is not just using a name that reflects something he cares a lot about. He defines the liberty movement as people that care more about liberty than people outside the liberty movement. It is consciously and apparently non-ironically connotative for them. That's the issue.

I'm not entirely clear on what you think is so difficult about distinguishing between philosophical and political libertarianism. What is the challenge there.

People made the point that "liberty movement" reflects a political phenomenon, but as I've already stated my point of contention is really the "liberty" part, not the "movement" part. I know it's political, it's not really what I'm preoccupied with or interested in here.

I did not read the comments (there were 40-ish), so maybe I'm a bit out of context with my own comments. That said, I think there is something rather common sensical about how people who self-identify as part of "the liberty movement" may equate it with a libertarian-ish point of view (or maybe they dont, I'm not part of such a movement). I guess the best I can offer is the analogy with those who, as part of "the green movement", may equate the movement with an environmentalist point of view.

"People made the point that "liberty movement" reflects a political phenomenon, but as I've already stated my point of contention is really the "liberty" part, not the "movement" part. I know it's political, it's not really what I'm preoccupied with or interested in here."

I guess I'm missing something then. I guess I'm not really sure what your point of contention is.

[Note: I started to set forth the following thoughts, but I'm not sure if I'm on the right track, or even if I am understanding what you take to be the issues at stake. I'm working on a paper on Hobbes right now, so my mind is pretty mush. Not a good time to start up again with blog commenting. What can you do. I was about to delete this, but figured I might as well throw it out there.] If your contention is that they have an incorrect conception of "liberty," that seems like a substantive objection to a moral/political value. But because this is a *political* movement, you should not expect these people to believe that their opponents are adequately concerned with "liberty." So I'm not sure how people are naive or opportunistic in their use of liberty, *given their believed conception* and *given that this is a political movement*. It is certainly not naive: there are many philosophers who defend such conceptions. It is not opportunistic: this is a political movement, and as such, you must set forth your preferred conception *as the right conception* and hope others agree. From their point of view, you might *believe* that you care about liberty, but you really dont. Again, as a political movement, they dont really have time to engage in philosophical debate about the reasonableness of one's conception of liberty.

I, as a decidedly small L libertarian, agree with you Daniel. It does seem to me to be on the uptick. It's distortive and tendentious.

I am struck by how little self-professed Libertarians often care about liberty. Extreme examples include their opposition to Lindley's in the second world war, their opposition to , or the Cold War. Now maybe there are good arguments against some of these things, and maybe some of those good arguments are based on the concern for some I repeat some liberties. But there also based on ignoring or downgrading other liberties. So it is not fair accurate or true to describe this group as the "liberty movement". They are the "some kinds of liberty for some people movement".

If somebody named their movement the "truth movement" because they were concerned with certain this is considered fact, we would all see through it.

The correct term for extreme right-wing so-called "libertarians" like Murphy is actually 'Oligarchist'. The society they want is not necessarily any more "free", it's just controlled by powerful oligarchs rather than by elected governments.

So I suggest in future people avoid the misleading term "libertarian", and instead refer to extreme right-wing so-called "libertarians" as oligarchists. This should help to reduce confusion and make things clearer and more honest.

The incorrectly and deceptively named "liberty movement", should also be renamed the Oligarchy moverment, given that it is mainly made up of extreme right-wing oligarchists,